


Interference

by malvarosa



Category: Fringe (TV), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, I Ship It, My First AO3 Post, Other, Short One Shot, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 12:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21054503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malvarosa/pseuds/malvarosa
Summary: The Machine tags Marine Corps investigator Olivia Dunham as an irrelevant - one of the first - while barely escaping from Agent Harris’ men after she convicts him of sexually assaulting three women (after which she became an FBI agent). She was one of the very few who prevented their own deaths, and for some years Finch observed her and thought about recruiting her… until she mysteriously disappeared after the incident at Logan International Airport .





	Interference

**Author's Note:**

> Since nobody was writing this fic about this photoset, I took a shot. Wrote it for like 30 mins after midnight, probs on a bad day a couple of years ago and lost it somewhere on Evernote and now it’s here.

Olivia’s trial is at 9 am, and she’s still awake in her apartment, staring at her phone at 4 am. She called the hotline to trace the unknown number hours ago, but nothing came up in their log. _It’s better that John didn’t know, _she decided, as she reached out for the second ice bag to tend to her leg.

She could still hear the voice of the man in her head. She cannot even begin to comprehend what have happened that afternoon, and who the man was, and how did he know. He could not be traced - apparently, the call never existed - but she needed answers. _I need you to call me again, I need an explanation._

***

For the last time, she went over Beth’s and secured her testimony before the trial. After the assault, she went into hiding, and Olivia found her in a decrepit old apartment complex, a labyrinth of empty units and abandoned commercial offices.

Her phone rang as she was going down the fire exit - the elevator has been dead for a decade, it seems. It was an unknown caller. “_Agent Dunham_,” a panicked male voice told her on the phone as she picked it up, “_I have no time to explain or introduce myself, but you should leave that apartment building **NOW**.”_

The man on the phone warned her, “_an armed guard is running down the stairwell, enter the room to your right and leap from the window. There should be a - ” But s_he wasn’t fast enough. The guard caught her, but she fought back. He threw her around the room and her leg hit a table, but she grabbed the nearest thing she can - a metal tray - and bashed him on the head with it right before he can draw his gun. And then she incapacitated him with a punch on the gut.

“_Agent Dunham? Olivia?” _the man was still on the line._ “Are you alright? Please talk to me. Olivia?”_

***

_He got off easy_, she thought. _That son of a bitch got off easy. Three accounts of sexual assault and this is what they gave him? The minimum?_ Yet Agent Harris’ glare towards her when they read his verdict was not out of rage or satisfaction, but of surprise. She understood. He was done hurting Beth and the two other junior agents; it’s now her turn.

Seething in anger, she rushes out of the courtroom, out of the FBI building. She knows she cannot trace the attack back to Harris - the guard who attacked her has been paid off by an anonymous backer. She tries calling John but she goes straight to voicemail. She needs a drink. She paces the courtyard back and forth, contemplating if she needs to go to her car to drink or to punch somebody.

Her phone rings. An unknown number. Without any hesitation, she picked it up. “Who are you, and what do you know?”

The familiar male voice answered, “Those I cannot tell you. But what I have is a warning. You are in grave danger, Agent Dunham.”

“I’m always in a state of danger, that is my job.”  


“Even so, this has the potential to end your career and your life, and the lives of those around you.”  


“What do you know?” She tries to place his accent. Metropolitan, but with a midwestern affect, under a distinct monotone.

“Agent Sanford Harris plans to get you out of the FBI in any means necessary.”  


“Agent Harris is under the custody of the FBI.”  


“But we both know that it wouldn’t be too long. And as long as he is alive, you are in danger.”  


“If he appeals-”  


“I am not talking about appeals, Agent. He is involved with an organization bigger than yours.”  


“Who are you? The Patriot Act -”  


“- requires me to disclose information on threats against National Security, yes. I am aware. And it will be dealt with, I assure you. But there will be no assurance about your person, Agent Dunham.”

“So what would you want me to do? Hide?”

“Your superior, Agent Francis, will send for you in Boston. Go.”  


“Who are you?”  


No reply.

“What if I stay?”  


“Stay and die. Proving me wrong will not get you anywhere. Go to Boston.”  


***

It is a pain, going down these stairs every night. _Back then, my only worry was going up_, he thought. Although now, his pain is constant, like the cross he had to bear on his back.

He limps down the landing, with a book in his hand - _Persuasion_ by Jane Austen, second edition. He paused. He wants to feel numb again, to escape all of this. But not today.

Emily Rosenberg was shot by her neighbor Henry Kipler, 3 times at the back of her head. 8th floor, Alton Building, Cross avenue, across 5 states from him. He knows, because he saw it happening. The Machine showed him a feed from a CCTV camera across the hall. He saw her head explode on the second bang of the gun.

For months he have seen dozens of Emilys and Henrys, and no matter how much he tried interfering, they always end up dead. He wonders how omnipresence can be revered, even when it does nothing.

In the span of thirteen months, only one survivor - an FBI agent. Of course she survives. Agent Olivia Dunham, he recalls, top of her class in Northwestern, with an estranged father, a sister, and a niece. He has been tracking her online since she went into Boston - it is easy to hack the FBI database, _of course_ \- and solved a number of intimidating cases. Right now, she in the middle of a top secret case involving a chemical terrorism attack. In fact, he knows where she is: for some reason, she just landed in Afghanistan from Boston.

He wonders if… no. She does not deserve to bear this with him. Not her, at least; she has so much to lose.

***

Olivia drinks alone in a bar in New York. John has been presumed dead, his body found nowhere. She will do anything for him, and she did - she even followed a lead in Afghanistan that turned out to be a dead end. She suspected foul play; John’s current cases always leads to a biochemical weapons malfunction at the Massive Dynamic Corporation. Charlie told her to give it a rest, but she wouldn’t quit. She had lobbied to go to the top, to the company’s founder himself in Manhattan, but she is powerless to see him. She knows that they are involved, but she has no proof, no evidence, nothing will hold in court.

From the corner of her eye she sees a bespectacled man, medium height, wearing a hat, looking at her across the street. She has noticed the same man days before, observing her around the streets of New York. This morning she saw him, in the middle of the crowd, an older man - a college professor by the way he dresses, she thought - walking with a limp. She followed him to a corner, but he disappeared. She smiled - _he knows anti-surveillance tactics._

But now she is pissed, a little bit drunk, and mourning. How dare he follow her here. She studies the layout of the bar - from her table she could see a spot in the bar that wouldn’t be seen outside. At the back of it, an exit. The exit leads to an open alleyway that would lead to another door, where she could cross the street and accost the man. Too easy.

But no. She turns around and looked directly at him, across the street. He returned her gaze and stood his ground. She caught him off-guard, she thinks, and she walks out of the bar, across the street, her hand on her holster, towards him.

“Agent Olivia Dunham,” he said.

_That voice._

_“You.”_ She draws her weapon. He doesn’t budge.  


“I know this is a difficult time for you, Agent Dunham,” he said, “but it’s unnecessary to shoot the man who saved your life.”  


“Who are you? Who sent you? Why did you call me? _Why are you here?_” her weapon was still aimed at his head.  


“I wanted to see you.”  


“Why?”  


“I wanted to see… that you are alive.”  


She lowers her gun. He _had_ saved her life.

“Tell me your name,” she asks, again, “you owe me that at least.”  


He hesitates.

“Call me Finch, Agent Dunham.”

She eases. “What are you, special intelligence? CIA?”

He smiles, and taps his cane onto his leg. “I don’t think they hire men like me, don’t you think?”

“How did you know about Harris?”  


“I have my sources.”

“Who?”  


He hesitates again. And finally replies. “I cannot tell you. You have so much to lose, Agent. So much to lose.”

“My friend already died - ” she protested.  


“And I know you loved Agent Scott dearly. Yet you have a family, a job, a mission. You do not need me, as I need you.”  


She was taken aback. “What do you know about Agent Scott?”  


“Go back to Boston, Agent Dunham.”  


“No. What happened to John?”  


_“Please, Olivia.”_  


It was dark, but she saw his sad, exhausted blue eyes under his glasses. It was a plea.

“Why are we here? _Why are you here?_” she asks.

Silence.

Then, finally, he said, “I just want to see that _somehow_, I saved _at least one of you_.”

***

She checked all the database available and there was no one bearing that name or alias in a hundred mile radius. She dug deep enough and found a short obituary for a Harold Finch, a resident of New York, by his widow, four years ago.

But she doesn’t need to. She sees him again and again, as she goes back and forth to Massive Dynamic and the local authorities, popping in and disappearing from the crowd, as if he wants her to know that he is observing her. And finally, she found his pattern.

On her last night in New York, she retraces his steps. For a man with a limp, he can walk a great distance. She finds out that he disappears into streets with a low density population and with no surveillance cameras. The pattern takes her to a deserted borough with old office buildings - and an abandoned library. She smiles and walks towards the library.

The entrance was blocked, but she found an abandoned cargo hold at the back of the building.

And she found him, standing by the door at the back of the library, waiting for her, smiling.

“You are a threat, Agent Dunham.”  


“Yes I am, Mister Finch.”

“You found me. A woman after my own heart.” he quipped, and she smiled back at him.  


“My advice, sadly, is still the same.”  


She shakes her head, “thank you for the advice, but I will solve this on my own.”  


He sighs. “You could’ve been a perfect ally, Agent Dunham, but I would never impose on you what you don’t deserve.”

“And why do you think that you deserve to bear this on your own?”  


He was taken aback by her question.

_How many people have he lost, to carry so heavy a weight? Who deserves this kind of loneliness?_

Impulsively, she holds her hand up to touch his cheek. They were both surprised, but he did not flinch. His cheeks feel cold on her warm hand. He holds her hand, and pulled it away gently from his face.

For a moment, he held her hand. In that moment, both of them felt each other’s loneliness. Both of them knew that they were bad at consoling other people, but they considered giving each other a hug. But both decided against it. He let go of her hand.

“I’m leaving for Boston tonight.”

“I know.”  


***

John Scott’s body have been found, finally, with his skin transparent and his veins filled with blue chemicals. The photos flash across the screens at headquarters, where Agent Charlie Francis’ team conducts a briefing on the matter.

Charlie yells at Olivia from across the hall. “Liv, for crying out loud, NO!”  


“I know his cases better than anybody here. I went to Massive Dynamic, I can -”  


“Jesus, Liv, you’re too involved in this case to -”  


“Charlie, this is mine.”  


“Do you think I’m dumb?” he lowered his voice. “I know about you and him. And you’re lucky that I didn’t report you both.”

Olivia stared at him in disbelief.

“You are emotionally compromised, Liv,” he said, exasperated, “let us do our job. Stay here.”  


Olivia has no time to calm down as their team leaves for the crime scene. She grabs her jacket and heads to the door - only to be distracted by all the office phones ringing in sync.

She stops at her tracks and turns back. She grabs the nearest phone, somehow expecting to hear a familiar voice.

But it is a different voice - an automated one, a combination of voice recordings, a machine stringing random words into a question.

“CAN. _You_. **HEAR**. ME?”


End file.
